When we changed customers from an ‘All inclusive’ rate to a ‘Day/Night’ we committed to ensure that no customer would be worse off overall as a result and that the ‘Weekend rebates’ would be a bonus.

In your case, yes you are currently paying approximately 21c/kWh for daytime energy, but you are only paying around 11.7c/kWh for your night usage. Overall you are still paying around 18c/kWh for your total consumption and you will receive your weekend rebate on top of this, so you are definitely better off for the change.

So you do not need to do anything differently from what you used to do. There should be no more hassle for you. However, if you choose to change when you use your power there are additional savings available to you. Indeed, that was one of the reasons we created the weekend tariff. We acknowledge that shifting consumption into the night is not always practical, but shifting it into the weekend may be, for example drying clothes in winter time – it is not at all practical to do this at midnight, but doing it during the daytime at the weekend is.

Basically any customer who uses less than 8,000 kWh pa (9,0000 kWh pa on SI) at their primary residence is less profitable than larger users. The lower the consumption, the less profitable to the extent that some will be loss making – the exact crossover varies by network company. All retailers are required by law to offer tariffs to low users that have low fixed charges, and that do not disdvantage them at 8,000 kWh – in our case our fixed charges are zero.

So if you are normally a 12,000 kWh pa customer and are away for 3m we will recover the costs over 9,000 kWh (making a simplifying assumption that your consumption is evenly spread) – and this is fine, you fully pay the fixed costs over the year.

If you are normally an 8,000 kWh pa customer and are away for 3m then we will recover 75% (6,000/8,000) of the fixed costs (ie. the same as if you were an even smaller customer). In this case we do not fully recover the fixed costs.

We don’t have a target profit that we intend to make off customers. Our commitment is to try and save most customers money. Indeed, very low users are loss making for us – we have to pay the fixed lines and metering costs irrespective of your usage, and unlike other retailers we do not have daily fixed charges (which is approximately $120pa for low users and as much as $350pa for standard users).

We do have a number of FAQs that describe our pricing in our FAQs. I will take your feedback on board and try and provide some more specific information around this issue is included as well.

I apologise that you weren’t given any warning of this change. I have also just reviewed our procedures with our Contact Centre and from now on we will email all customers at the time that their pricing drops below the low user threshold.

Once again, apologies for the surprise – I have taken your feedback on board and we’ll definitely be trying to improve our communications.

And when were you going to tell me that you were departing from the rates you imply I was going to be paying? (If I hadnt checked I might not have found out for another month)!!

You don’t exactly make this behaviour clear in any of your publications!

I have just looked at your account and you have extremely low usage – I wouldn’t be surprised if you are our lowest.

What your pricing reflects is the recovery of fixed network and metering costs over that small usage. With other retailers you would be paying a fixed daily charge, so you will still be saving with us.

In any event, if this property is your primary residence you are eligible to go on our low user pricing – which will drop your prices back. You can select this option under ‘My settings’. I have asked someone from our contact centre to call you to discuss this with you.

As I mentioned, other retailers have fixed daily charges that we don’t and with us you will only pay for energy you use, so you still benefit from reducing consumption.

Doesn’t seem right or fair!

I must admit that I brought forward a couple of sessions of dehydrating fruit (very energy intensive) to get them out of the way before the period started and that has biased my pre Copenhagen average. So I’ll be looking to achieve a bigger reduction.